organised SPECIAL sessions

Challenges to Economic Development: Evidence from Microdata 

Chair: Antonella Bancalari, University of St Andrews

Presentations

Fostering Early Childhood Development in Low-Resource Communities: Evidence from a Group-Based Parenting Intervention in Tanzania 

Margaret Leighton, University of St Andrews

Group-based parent training programmes present an affordable means to influence the early experiences of children at scale. This paper reports evidence on the effectiveness of one such early child development programme piloted in rural Tanzania. The core of the intervention is an 8-10 week caregiver training course led by local facilitators, build around early stimulation and nurturing care. After two years of implementation, the intervention led to improvements in the development of 3-year olds of 0.26 standard deviations. Detailed data on caregivers indicates that these improvements are due to changes in the type and frequency of caregiver-child interactions, as well as the quality of play materials in the home.

Contrasting the Impacts from two Formal Savings Devices: Evidence from a field experiment in Benin

Philippe LeMay-Boucher, Heriot-Watt University

We conduct a field experiment to assess the impacts of access to two formal saving devices on saving behavior. Subgroups of our sample of around 3000 individuals, are offered either access to a mobile money account or an account at a microfinance institution (MFI). One year after opening these accounts, we find that access to a mobile money account substantially increases savings. Comparatively, using a standard saving account from an MFI provides no significant effects on savings. Our results suggest that the flexibility provided by mobile money accounts offers greater rewards to financially unconnected people. We also observe a complementarity between mobile money account and informal saving groups in the form of savings through ROSCAs.

Temperature, Attitudes, and Protests in Africa 

Marco Alfano, University of Strathclyde

This paper documents a significant effect of short-term temperature fluctuations on attitudes, protests, and voting. Combining Africa-wide survey and high-frequency climatic data, we find that daily temperature anomalies increase self-reported mistrust in government and intentions to vote for opposition parties. Evidence suggests that temperature decreases trust by magnifying already existing grievances of marginalised groups. In poor countries, temperature anomalies also increase self-reported intentions to protest. When analysing observed actions, we find that temperature anomalies increase protests, riots and also votes cast for opposition parties at presidential elections. Evidence suggests that these effects are not driven by agricultural incomes.

Resource Windfalls and Local Labour Markets: Evidence from Peru 

Antonella Bancalari, University of St Andrews

We investigate how resource windfalls to local governments affect labor markets. We use data from the distribution of royalties among more than 1800 Peruvian districts between 2006 and 2019, which we match to administrative records of public employment and detailed individual data from surveys. We find evidence of a positive effect of royalties on public sector hiring concentrated in low-skilled workers. The composition of human resources moves away from permanently hired managers, towards an increase in support workers hired for public projects. We estimate trickle-down effects in the local economy, as total employment increases and private employment moves away from the informal sector. We also find an increase in income and expenditures in nontradables.

Economics Network Special Session: Teaching and learning in economics during the Covid-19 pandemic 

Chair: Alvin Birdi, University of Bristol and Economics Network

This session will focus on two Economics Network projects:

1. Economics teaching and learning in the Covid-19 pandemic: what was done and what should be done?

In this paper we develop an analysis of how teaching, learning, and assessment practices in economics have been adapted in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. The analysis draws on semi-structured interviews conducted with key role-holders who were responsible for reviewing, re-designing and implementing changes to teaching practice over the academic years 2019-20 and 2020-21 in a range of university departments, schools, and units offering economics courses in the United Kingdom.

The analysis is developed through thematic analysis, where we explore: (i) the degree of autonomy delegated to individual teaching units over the process of adaptation of teaching practice, (ii) the tension between process-driven approaches versus pedagogical enhancement approaches, (iii) barriers and enablers to the implementation of a desired response, and (iv) elements of innovative practice that are planned to be retained at the end of the social distancing restrictions. In the final part of the paper, we consider the elements of innovative practice as identified by the respondents and we map such elements to recognised frameworks for blended learning practice with the aim of identifying to what extent innovative practice in economics education has aligned with the principles advocated by mainstream pedagogical research. Finally, we compare and contrast the practices emerging from our analysis with those outlined in the Economics Network Virtual Symposium held in 2020 to investigate the emergence of specific elements of good practice in economics education in the aftermath of the Covid pandemic.

2. A systematic literature review of pedagogical papers in economics education 2020-2021: Insights from our collective practice during the Covid-19 pandemic

In March 2020, the national lockdown in the UK forced academics across higher education to think about how they would examine students and subsequently teach online. Within economics, where the examination is still a significant part of most assessments and where large lectures with problem-based tutorials are still common, the move to the online environment for 2021/22 produced its challenges that each academic navigated alone.  This session will present the findings from a systematic literature review of the pedagogical papers in economics education in 2020 and 2021. It will bring together our collective experience of teaching economics during the Covid-19 pandemic and draw general conclusions. It will also share the results on the non-Covid themes currently considered in economics education and highlight areas where future work is needed. 

Speakers

Alvin Birdi, University of Bristol and Economics Network

Caroline Elliott, University of Warwick

Denise Hawkes, Anglia Ruskin University 

Ashley Lait, Economics Network

Fabio Arico, University of East Anglia

Paul Cowell, University of Stirling

Paul Latreille, University of Sheffield

COVID reactions among Older Scots: Evidence from the HAGIS survey 

Chair: David Comerford, University of Stirling

Overview

In 2021, the Healthy Ageing in Scotland (HAGIS) survey fielded its second wave. Part of a HRS family of Longitudinal Ageing studies, HAGIS surveys older Scots (aged 47+). The first wave of data collection took place in 2016-17. As well as asking about health and cognitive ageing, it included a module on the respondents’ economic and financial behaviours. In addition, this second wave asks a suite of questions that focus particularly on respondents' experience of the pandemic. It comprises a sample of over 2,500 respondents from across Scotland. The HAGIS data will be made publicly available and we expect it to prove a valuable resource to academics and researchers in the public sector.

Protecting confidentiality in social science research outputs

Chair: Suhail Iqbal, Scottish Safe Haven

Overview